When do you graduate from an EOR to your own Austria GmbH?

The table below uses EUR 540 as an illustrative EUR equivalent of the Teamed fee. This is illustrative, not a fixed EUR price. The actual EUR amount depends on the exchange rate at the time of invoice. Teamed charges from $599 USD with zero FX mark-up.

All entity cost figures are typical ranges. They cover outsourced payroll, bookkeeping, statutory filings, Abfertigung Neu administration, and HR advisory for a small Austrian GmbH. They are illustrative, not law figures. Actual costs vary with the complexity of your setup and your benefits programme.

Employer social security is approximately 21.32% on gross salary up to the monthly contribution ceiling of EUR 6,930. Above that ceiling the rate does not apply. The ceiling compresses the effective rate for higher earners. The crossover tends to land around 5 to 7 employees at mid-level tech salaries in Vienna.

Abfertigung Neu at 1.53% on every monthly salary applies on both sides. This is not a large number but it is paid on all 14 salary instalments per year (12 monthly plus the two Austrian special payments). Run the Crossover Calculator with your own headcount and salary band.

1. Calculate the EOR cost

   Multiply the Teamed fee (from $599 USD) by your planned Austrian headcount. This is the fixed variable cost. It grows linearly as you hire.

2. Estimate the GmbH fixed overhead

   Typically EUR 2,500 to 4,000 per month for a small Austrian GmbH. This covers payroll bureau, bookkeeping, filings, Abfertigung Neu administration, and first-point HR. Add the one-off cost of capital: EUR 35,000 share capital, EUR 17,500 of which is cash at notarisation.

3. Find the crossover headcount

   The crossover is where EOR monthly cost equals entity monthly overhead. For most Austrian tech salary bands, this is typically around 5 to 7 employees. Use the Crossover Calculator for your own numbers.

4. Factor in non-financial triggers

   The maths gives you a headcount threshold. Works council implications past five employees, equity incentive plans, and the EUR 35,000 capital lock-up are separate questions that may override the cost crossover in either direction.

5. Plan the graduation date

   Allow approximately 4 to 6 weeks for GmbH formation before the first payroll on your own entity. Austrian banking is typically faster than in other European markets. Start the GEMO process while EOR continues running.

These are typical ranges. They are not law figures. There is no law that sets what a GmbH costs to incorporate in professional services fees. The share capital requirement is law under the GmbHG; the fees are market rates and vary with complexity.

The share capital point nobody mentions

The EUR 35,000 minimum share capital is not a fee you pay and forget. It is equity capital that must sit inside the GmbH. You can use it for operating costs, but it must not fall below the minimum without triggering a capital top-up or restructuring obligation. For early-stage teams testing the Austrian market, locking EUR 17,500 into a shell GmbH before you have Austrian revenue is a real cost of capital that does not appear in any professional-services quote.

These figures are typical market ranges for a small Austrian GmbH with 1 to 12 employees. They are illustrative. They are not law figures. Actual costs depend on whether you outsource or hire in-house, and the complexity of your payroll. Austria's 14-payment salary structure (12 monthly plus two special payments) adds modest complexity to payroll processing.

Above 12 employees, dedicated HR capacity and an in-house finance function typically become necessary. The cost band widens at that point. Collective agreement (Kollektivvertrag) monitoring also becomes more important as headcount grows, since Austria has over 800 sector-level CBAs.

Most cost comparisons skip the managing-director-liability dimension. It is worth naming explicitly before you decide.

Personal GmbH managing director duties

Under the GmbH-Gesetz (GmbHG), every Austrian GmbH managing director must act with the care of a diligent entrepreneur (der Sorgfalt eines ordentlichen Geschaeftsmannes). A Geschaeftsfuehrer who signs accounts without proper review is personally liable for resulting losses. Late or incorrect filings attract personal fines. Intentional or grossly negligent breaches can lead to claims from the company, creditors, or the tax authority.

The compliance treadmill

• Annual financial statements: prepared and filed within 9 months of year-end. Late filing attracts penalties from the Firmenbuch.
• Koerperschaftsteuer (KSt) return: due by 30 June of the following year (or extended). The minimum KSt is EUR 5,452 per year even in a loss year for the first 10 years after formation, then EUR 3,500 thereafter. A GmbH pays tax even when it makes no profit.
• Lohnsteuer remittance: by the 15th of the following month, every month, including the two special payment months.
• Social security (Sozialversicherung) filings: monthly contributions due by the 15th of the following month.
• Abfertigung Neu contributions: monthly at 1.53% of gross salary, payable to the chosen BV Kasse.
• WKO membership levy: most commercial GmbHs are mandatory WKO members and pay a small annual levy.

Each filing is individually small. Stacked across a year they consume real management attention. An EOR carries all of these on its own entity.

• Under 5 Austrian employees on average salaries: EOR is cheaper every month. The entity overhead has nothing to amortise against, and EUR 17,500 sits idle in the GmbH.
• Market validation phase: you are hiring 1 or 2 people to test commercial fit. Entity setup commits EUR 35,000 in capital and management attention before you know whether Austria will deliver.
• Project-based hires: 6 to 18 month engagements where the formation cost and capital lock-up will not amortise before the project ends.
• No collective agreement substance needed yet: GmbH Geschaeftsfuehrer are generally not covered by collective agreements. If your Austrian hires are standard employees and you do not yet need the collective agreement levers that come with your own entity, the EOR handles this cleanly.
• Acquired team you may divest: post-acquisition holding patterns where adding a GmbH creates wind-up complexity and minimum KSt liabilities that run even in a loss year.

• Sustained headcount above 7 Austrian employees at average salaries: the entity overhead amortises across enough people that per-head cost falls below the EOR fee. The EUR 35,000 share capital starts to look like a rounding error at this scale.
• Works council threshold: Austrian companies with five or more employees are entitled to elect a works council (Betriebsrat). Having your own GmbH gives you a direct legal relationship with the works council rather than routing through an EOR. Beyond twenty employees, works council co-determination rights become more significant in practice.
• Stock option or equity incentive plan: Austrian equity incentive plans (Mitarbeiterbeteiligung) work more cleanly when the employee is employed directly by the entity whose shares they are receiving. EOR structures add a layer of complexity to equity administration.
• Tax treaty substance: some cross-border tax structures need actual Austrian substance in your own entity. EOR employment does not count as your substance for permanent establishment or treaty purposes.
• Enterprise customer or regulatory requirement: certain regulated industries in Austria require the service provider to hold Austrian entity status. If your sales motion runs into this requirement, forming the GmbH becomes blocking.

The technical mechanic is contract novation: the employment contract transfers from Teamed Austria to your new GmbH on a specified date. All terms carry across. Salary, leave entitlement, and continuous service date all remain unchanged. The Abfertigung Neu BV fund contributions transfer to a fund of the employee's choosing under your new entity, with no break in accrual. The employee sees a different employer name on their payslip. Nothing else changes.

What we do operationally:

• Stand up your Austrian GmbH through GEMO, approximately 4 to 6 weeks including notarisation, while EOR continues running in parallel.
• Coordinate the notary appointment and Firmenbuch registration.
• Register the GmbH with Finanzamt, WKO, and the relevant Sozialversicherung authority.
• Novate every active employment contract on a single effective date.
• Transfer Abfertigung Neu contributions to the designated BV Kasse without any lapse.
• File final EOR-period Lohnsteuer and social security submissions and open new registrations on the GmbH from the novation date.
• Provide the same People Ops specialist as the post-graduation primary contact.

The Graduation Model exists because every other EOR makes this hard. We treat the move as something we help you plan for from the day you hire your first employee through us.

Real HR and legal experts handle your Austrian hires from the first offer letter through every Lohnsteuer remittance and Abfertigung Neu BV fund contribution. An actual person, not a chatbot or a pooled queue. There is no setup fee and no exit fee. Every employer cost passes through at cost, itemised on every invoice. You see the social security line at approximately 21.32%, the Abfertigung Neu contribution at 1.53% of gross salary, and the leave accrual for 25 days days per year (rising to 30 days after 25 years service). Austria does not have a separate auto-enrolment pension scheme: the state pension is part of the social security contribution. Nothing is hidden inside the management fee.

EOR payroll, contractor onboarding, and entity setup all live on one platform. Run the Crossover Calculator to see the month the model flips. Start from the Austria hiring overview. Key sources: Unternehmensserviceportal (USP) and Wirtschaftskammer Oesterreich (WKO).